Rite of Death - Mirari Revel, #4

Mirari Revel stories are short, queer, speculative fiction stories meant to be read in one sitting. 

Axel is dying, and he has made his peace with that. What he fears is the Rite.

Among the Pacificus people, no one crosses into the hereafter unjudged. Before the end, you kneel at the grave of your eldest ancestor, lay your offerings, and summon the Elders to weigh the life you lived. A life found whole earns a gentle passing. A life found wanting is sentenced to begin again — and again — carrying the memory of every life before.

Axel is not certain his life will pass. He drifted from the faith that raised him. He never told his parents who he truly was. And years ago, when the man he loved was dying and asked Axel to stay, Axel walked away.

Now, in a rain-soaked cemetery with pomegranate seeds staining his hands, Axel calls the Court of Elders to confess all of it — and to learn whether a life of small failures and quiet regrets can still be found worthy of grace.

The Rite of Death is a tender, deeply moving short story about faith, queer love, and mortality. For readers of Bryan Washington and TJ Klune, it asks whether the forgiveness hardest to earn is the kind we withhold from ourselves.